- how do get the value to people in the bottom third?- how do we ensure the materials are genuinely educational

- all this from the context of video production - we have no idea how th economics of this will work

Andy Porter - Dean of the Graduate School of Education

- Zeke brings up the problem of 'the rich get richer' - advances in learning tend to create wider gaps - how can we use MOOCs to reduce inequalities

- the challenges don't have to be challenges - they don't have to be in English, they don't have to require high reading skills - we need to look at 'what is excellence in online teaching'

The Advent of MOOCs panel sessionAbdul Wahid Khan IGNOU

- MOOCs - recent, buzzword, etc - critics call it a fad, hype, etc. - my bias - MOOCs have a contribution to make, but there are reasons to be careful - MOOCs essentially a response to the emerging knowledge society - the value of knowledge increases - people used to value wealth but now they value knowledge - poor man's version of MOOCs - mssive - nobody has defined this; - open - a new phenomenon; - online - this is where I deviate - in my time we had 'on air' for farmers - eg. in support of Green Revolution in India - to address gap between the land and the lab - radio + printed support system - has been running for 35 years - what is the difference? It targeted a local problem, in a local language, multi-sakeholder, blended learning - it is not technology that should determine learning, it should be the learning that determines the tech - eg. MOOCs in Bengali, in Hindi, etc - you don't want to put a current evaluation against the potential of the technology - what made IGNOU possible? - massive unmet demand, - plus, we began to develop programs that meet the needs of industry - encouraged active partnership between public and private sector (eg. 3,500 private sector learning facilities) - technology can bring a multiplier effect, but the technology per se is not the action

Bakary Diallo - Rector, AVU

- pragmatism before popularity - it's hard to make a decision before you know what the future is - that said, MOOCs make sense for us in the context of higher ed in Africa - the biggest problem in Africa is access - need min 12-15 graduates from tertiary education to sustain development - so eg. video not currently practical - exploring solar power, fibre-optics, etc - e-learning is a viable and profitable business in Africa, which is evidence it works - 75% of AVU's activity devoted to capacity-building - OERs - the fact that the resources are open makes a big difference - but how to capitalize on this? - additional problem of accreditation - need programs, not courses (MOOPs) - Objectives - form institutional partnerships - develop infrastructure adapted to the African context

Mikala Petoki - EPFL - Luasanne

- MOOCs - in a normal hype cycle - future - multiple forms, different blends, features for specific user groups, business models - outlook - here to stay - key ingredients: great offering; tech, data, visualizations; know learning more - the user at the center - this is about people this is about individuals - and the user is not like me - the question is - how do we serve *people* in resource-poor communities - and how do we serve each of them in the right way - opportunities: - dissemination - bandwidth, language, and blended configurations - eg. EPFL Flying Donkey Drone Challenge - academic environment - credit and certification, adapt governance, work on regulatory environment, multi-party initiatives - content development - students have to have the basis to comprehend, and teachers are still at the centre of videos - harnessing networks - eg. French-language networks

How does existing technology help MOOCs be localized and learner-centred? - intended for massive numbers, but doesn't prevent designing programs for the needs of a specific group - add that the blend no matter where allows for a collective learning experience - what kind of pedagogy? there is none - it's up to you - there is no pedagogy in traditional university - IGNOU - many students appear in competitive exams - even from traditional institutions - using IGNOU materials - AVU has two courses for lecturers addressing these issues

Costs & Benefits of MOOCs

Clara Ng - Coursera

- model - what are the costs, and what are the opportunities that offset them - universities - costs (course production $50L-$200K) plus faculty time (400 hrs median) - learners - mostly costs time, as MOOCs are mostly free - sustainable ecosystem requires understanding of value creation - cycle where universities create value for students, students create value for universities - Coursera value for students: the education, which we provide for free, and the credentials, which we earn revenue - identity-verified certificate - using photos and biometric assessment of typing pattern - certificate track - $30-$100/course - averaging 1.2% conversion up to current avg of 2.4% - driven by demand from employers - also driven by improvements to user interface - total $4M revenue thus far - specializations - sequence of courses - project-based learning - social impact (Scott Plous, Wesleyan Uni) - contest (how to live compassionately for 24 hours) - value for learners - free courses - translated content - mobile access - social learning and community building

- Question of whether education is a public good or not - concern that education has become a public good without public support - cost of production is high, but the market is based on the low cost of reproduction - concern about how to generate revenue - where does public funding come from - beyond this question: the practical question is, what sort of business models are we comfortable implementing - costs of rerunning courses are low, so we encourage institutions to rerun the course - knowledge is more and more more commoditized - but the resources will never replace full-fledged education, but somebody has to pay - (I'm from MIT) - my courses are on OCW, the costs of keeping OCW going are well beyond those of the first foundations - (OAS) - facilitated teacher education - we are really lagging behind compared to OECD countries - is theer a model in a developing country doing PD for teachers - what's the revenue-share between Coursera & Universities? - 15% going to university

Cooperative Model? - is really present in OER - OER does not need to find a sustainable business model, just needs a value network

Tracking how learners learn in different contextsMOOCs and International DevelopmentPapa Youga Dieng - OIF

- can speak of Anglophone but not francophone Africa - Africans are consumers rather than producers of MOOCs - from Africa material is produced that goes into others' MOOCs - MOOCs and development challenges in Africa - other priorities - showcase African knowledge and expertise - resource, social and development initiatives in Africa - Resource implications in the development of MOOCs - major costs, expertise required - cf University of London report on mOOCs - governance and strategy Steven Duggan - Microsoft

- how do we deliver personalized learning - Do your students like school? mostly - 'no' - the current modalities are failing everyone - tech - Khan reached 216M students with 36 teachers - the ability to learn doesn't just appear with availability - modern schools: need to teach collaboration, communiocation, problem solving - show don't tell (then he plays a video) - new forms of learning need new forms of measurement - what are the big challenges in education? - #1 - literacy - we need books, readers, coaches, etc., - there are 7K languages, most of which have < 100K speakers - almost a third of illiterate students live in illiterate homes - MS - has created free tools - lit4life.net - anyone can create a book with text, images and audio - can be distributed on smart phones (16K texts on a phone) - we can provide assessment, because we know when they have finished a book - what does success look like? - the class of the future won't look like a space age class of today - the classroom is a recent inveention - what we will have before that class will look more like apprenticeship - personal learning - but this has to be available to both developing & developed would

Comments

- 20 years for now - the need for higher ed people will double, the need for teachers will tripple

- what is success - students success in life, in employment, in (?)

- the need to keep teachers in the loop, to keep parents in the loop - response (Duggan) the point isn't to replace teachers or schools - (Dieng) problem of teachers without training, and low pay for teachers - also - even if tech isn't essential for training, it creates incentive

- the notion of democratic MOOCs

- how to balance effective MOOC vs sustainability issue - (Duggan) the key issue is how to create more content - (echo of same comment from Udemy) - the question of what there is to learn from these communities

- copyright and content issues - and support for open licensing

Surprises - Economic Models

- we didn't hear about the institutional impact of MOOCs - no space around the ethical dimension - missing in business models session - link to developing countries - missing - division between public & private universities - maybe more of a stakeholder analysis - but with a comparison between drivers - looking at institutional involvement - to what end? - what does 'free' mean - not just access, but price, and participattion

- MOOCs, ODLs - no discussion of the flipped classroom model

Thoughts

- 'democratization' - getting people into jobs, etc (India - 500 million people need employment skills) - question of how much is a production problem and how much is a distribution problem

- how much of this economy depends on creating scarcities rather than responding to them - issues of licensing - 'giving knowledge for free' vs 'creating knowledge'

- democratic MOOCs - vs? what leads us closer to meeting needs of developing world

- & education isn't a 'delivery problem' so much as a creation problem - we need to get away from delivering learning

- what is 'massive' - group vs individuals vs network - what is 'success' - able to do vs able to know (direct challenge to PISA) - connectivist model - linking community & OERs - community-based economic model - the hard part isn't creating content,

No society has ever been built on the sale of educationNo society has ever been built without education